Berkeley: Independent bookstores adapt to keep customers

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Steve Lehman, a regular shopper at Pegasus Books, peruses the offerings at the independent bookstore on Solano Ave. in Berkeley, Calif., on Tuesday, April 26, 2016. Pegasus Books is gearing up for Independent Booksellers Day to be celebrated on April 30. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)

Miriam Gross, a regular shopper at Pegasus Books, looks through the bargain bin in front of the independent bookstore on Solano Ave. in Berkeley, Calif., on Tuesday, April 26, 2016. Pegasus Books is gearing up for Independent Booksellers Day to be celebrated on April 30. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)

Jeff Armbruster, a senior buyer for Pegasus Books, stocks some merchandise at the independent bookstore on Solano Ave. in Berkeley, Calif., on Tuesday, April 26, 2016. Pegasus Books is gearing up for Independent Booksellers Day to be celebrated on April 30. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)

Colin Johnson unpacks boxes of books at Pegasus Books on Solano Ave. in Berkeley, Calif., on Tuesday, April 26, 2016. Pegasus Books is gearing up for Independent Booksellers Day to be celebrated on April 30. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)

Some don’t make it or simply give up — in Berkeley, Shakespeare & Co., Black Oak Books and William Stout Architectural Books closed within the last year, although the latter remains in business at its main store in San Francisco.

But many independent bookstores are experiencing a renaissance, reinventing themselves as literary community gathering venues, places not only to buy books but also to discuss them, meet their authors, listen to readings, and sometimes just to have fun.

Independent Bookstore Day, held Saturday, celebrated the stores that local co-organizer Elka Karl touts as “the written word’s most stalwart defender.” Some 420 bookstores, including more than a dozen in the East Bay, took part in the nationwide celebration, with literary parties, promotions, customized merchandise and special events.

“We’re doing well. We’re doing better than ever,” said Maria Roden, owner of Orinda Books, a “community bookstore” now in its 40th year that has a slate of events scheduled for Independent Bookstore Day, including Duck & Goose storytime and Canine Companions, a visit by three therapy dogs.

In recent months, many new customers have come to the Orinda store, said Roden, who believes the influx may be related to the closing of The Storyteller, a popular children’s bookstore in Lafayette whose owner retired in October. More recently, national chain Barnes & Noble closed its Walnut Creek outlet.

Another draw at Orinda Books is a small art gallery exhibiting the work of local artists, with monthly receptions. The store also hosts book group and community group meetings as well as cooking demonstrations — which include lunch. Orinda Books also sells a Moraga chocolatier’s products as well as a local resident’s children’s clothing line, “all local people with locally made, handcrafted items,” Roden said. And the store recently became an occasional venue for Death Cafe, an international movement that promotes group discussions about death and end-of-life issues.

At Moe’s Books on Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue, the theme for Saturday’s celebration was train books.

To say that running Moe’s Books is a labor of love for Moskowitz would be an understatement.

“It’s something so meaningful to me, and it’s also meaningful to the people who work here,” said Moskowitz, daughter of the store’s late founder, Moe Moskowitz. “The question that Moe asked when he opened the store about 1959 was ‘Can you have a business based on fairness?’ Here we are, 50, 60 years later, still in business.”

She described Moe’s as a general bookstore with a lot of “specialty stuff” like religion (Eastern and Western), philosophy, classics (Greek and Latin), and music, with 200,000-plus titles, mostly used, and based on fair trade: “You give me a book, I give you a fair price.”

The store employs 27 people, some who have worked there for 25 or 30 years, Moskowitz said.

Next year she plans to publish a book about Moe, who was a musician and political activist.

At Pegasus Books on Berkeley’s Solano Avenue, events are a regular part of the show, and on Bookstore Day the store will feature a “Pawtograph Party” with coloring books of the “Dogstomers,” featuring some of the funny canines that regularly come to the shop. In the evening, the women’s chorale Santa Barbara Anns will sing Beach Boys songs.

Events bring fun and energy to the store, said Pegasus owner Amy Thomas. They build the store’s profile, “and a lot of customers who enjoy these events are good book buyers,” she added.

“We’ve figured out how to run a bookstore that works — with a mix of products,” Thomas said. “We’re doing our part: events, tons of cool books.” There is one big problem, she said: “When people don’t have a lot of time, they go online and get it cheap.”

Thomas wrote an Op-Ed piece that appeared in the Daily Cal in March in which she slams online retailer Amazon for what she deems its “preternaturally predatory business practices,” facilitated by the “tremendous and unprecedented support of lawmakers” who she says have “routinely written special laws and tax deals” for Amazon as an early tech company.

Builders Booksource on Berkeley’s Fourth Street is another store that feels Amazon’s sting. As its name suggests, Builders sells books related to the home: Architecture, interior design, landscape gardening, urban planning. “Everything dealing with the built environment,” according to co-owner George Kiskaddon. Some architecture books can retail for as much as $70 or $80.

“We see people taking pictures of books. Then they go online,” Kiskaddon said. For a $15 book, on the other hand, “They won’t necessarily go online.”

Builders Booksource opened in 1982 down the street in a 900-square-foot space. Five years later, it moved into a 3,000-square-foot space at its present location, 1817 Fourth St. In October 2012, the store downsized to 1,500 square feet.

Kiskaddon pays his staff $15 to $17 an hour, which is much more than the prevailing minimum wage and something he feels strongly should be a nationwide issue, or at least a statewide one. But as Builders downsized, “we went from 11 employees to three. And my workweek went from 24 to 30 hours, to 60 hours.”

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